Home Staging Tips & Checklist

Table Of Content

• Always opt for a neutral interior
• Where the Pros Shop: DIY Home Staging Resources on a Budget
• Use decor to add pops of color
• Living with staging: Keep things neat from listing to offer
• Add Greenery
• Preserve your formal dining room with classic staging
• Tips for Staging a Mid-Century Modern Style Home
• Wallpaper and Paint

A few high-end kitchen decor pieces can go a long way in helping build the fantasy that people with good taste (and lots of disposable income) would love in the home. Just remember that they don’t have to be super-high quality and expensive—they just have to look super-high quality and expensive. Grab some beautiful oil and vinegar decanters, a classy utensil holder from Le Creuset, or a Polish pottery dish for fresh fruit and you can’t go wrong.

Always opt for a neutral interior

Unlike luxury homes, most starter and affordable homes are staged by the homeowner working with the listing agent. If the home is staged by the homeowner or listing agent, the listing agent will visit the home to go over the scope and cost of the staging project. Who pays for home staging depends on the value of the home, how aggressively priced the home is, and the agreement the homeowner makes with their listing agent. Once they understand that home staging can lead to a 1% to 20% increase in a home’s selling price (according to NAR), many homeowners will happily pay for home staging. Make sure to deep clean carpets (and possibly furniture) to remove any lingering pet odors.

Where the Pros Shop: DIY Home Staging Resources on a Budget

If you already have furniture that they can use (that will appeal to most buyers), a home stager will add homey, personal touches to the interior in what’s called soft staging. By minimizing the house’s flaws and highlighting its best features you are “packaging” your house in the most appealing way that would lead to more interest, higher offers and quicker sales. Home staging, if done right, creates a relaxing and inviting atmosphere, where potential buyers would want to linger. A well-staged home will draw the buyers to online listings and showings, and, hopefully, will end in generous offers. Staging a house prior to selling it is one of the best investments you can make to ensure it gets a quick offer and achieves the highest sale value. Many full-service Realtors today will take care of staging your home, and many may hire a professional stager to assist in the process.

Use decor to add pops of color

Unless you’ve got a brown thumb, there’s no need to hire a landscaper to tackle your foliage. Just don’t go so overboard trimming your greenery that the yard looks barren. You’ll mainly see those high-end staging prices given on massive, luxury homes where price is no object because staging will increase their sold price by $50,000 to $100,000 or more. True, it’s more likely that staging will bring in up to 25% more on million-dollar luxury homes, but even on modest homes where staging only nets an extra 5%—that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Presenting your home in its best light can make all the difference when it comes time to sell. According to the National Association of Realtors, 81% of buyer’s agents report that home staging makes buyers more likely to picture themselves moving in. Most stagers charge $300 to $600 for an initial design consultation, and $500 to $600 per month per staged room, says realtor.com®.

Make sure the sidewalk leading up to the house is clear and clean, and buy new doormats for the front and back doors. If you have a pool, showcase it by making sure it’s crystal clear. Creating some sort of outdoor living space in the backyard, such as a deck or patio with outdoor furniture, is another way to use the exterior of your home to its greatest advantage.

Gives everything a calmer and homier feel, also feels less cluttered. We’ve covered a lot of ground in this guide, but let’s close with a quick home-staging FAQ. You have several options for removing rust, including a store-bought rust remover, abrasive tools like a sander or steel wool, WD-40, and using common household ingredients like vinegar.

But it’s important to be aware of the potential home staging costs before you get started. By decluttering, depersonalizing, and furnishing your home, you can make it more appealing to a prospective buyer and help it sell faster. But if you hire a professional home stager to help buyers fall in love with your house, the money is usually well spent. In a 2021 survey of 4,600 properties, 73% sold over list price, according to the Real Estate Staging Association.

You’re a homebuyer too, so you will know when the room feels good to you. You’ll be surprised at the instant makeover from a quick refinish of the floors. After all, your client could have the most beautiful furniture in the world, but if the floors are scuffed up and dirty, the entire room will feel cheap. Even a quick refinishing of a laminate floor will make the whole house sparkle. If your seller has stained wood cabinets, you might try some Restorz-It Wood Finish to spruce up the surfaces.

Even get those areas you think no one would ever see, like behind the toilet and the baseboards behind furniture. Clean appliances thoroughly and remove references to pets like toys and beds. Home staging seeks to make the home appealing to as many people as possible. This is about appearance, not practicality, so how you stage a home is probably different from how you would design it if someone were living there.

Buyers, sellers see benefits of staging houses - The Washington Post

Buyers, sellers see benefits of staging houses.

Posted: Sat, 23 Sep 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

It’s OK to have a colorful wall, especially in the kitchen, bathroom, or bedroom. You can have a soft pink, blue, gray, or even a light, airy yellow. Ask your homeowners to remove as many appliances from the counter as possible to open up the kitchen and give it some space.

Ideally, you should clean every part of the house, from the floors to the ceilings—and everything in between. Once the homeowner and listing agent agree on the scope and cost, they will split the work of staging the home. It’s worth checking with your brokerage to see if the company has furniture or decor that agents can use to stage listings. In fact, sometimes agents end up migrating into home staging as a side hustle. You can start adding to your collection of staging decor now and build up a sizable stockpile quickly, especially if you use the tips in the shopping guide below. Home staging can cost anywhere from $500 for a quick coat of paint and some sweat equity to well over $50,000 for a months-long staging project in a large luxury home.

I spent more time in that room than I should have and didn’t remember much else about the home. I had a similar experience when the sellers had two big, gorgeous dogs in kennels inside the home. More than 80% of real estate agents representing buyers said staging made it easier for their buyers to see themselves in the home, according to a 2021 survey by the NAR. And 23% of agents said that home staging led to increased offers between 1% and 5% compared to similar homes that weren’t staged. Staging a home means preparing a property for sale by temporarily furnishing and decorating—and sometimes, renovating—various rooms to make it more attractive.

You may not think of all these things as staging, but they are. All of these things will make a difference in how long it takes to sell the homes and at what price it sells for. First, decluttering the home to remove the specific style of the current owners is important. Removing family photos, children’s art from the fridge, the majority of knickknacks, and even some of the furniture can allow others to see themselves in the home more easily. Get Forbes Advisor’s ratings of the best mortgage lenders, advice on where to find the lowest mortgage or refinance rates, and other tips for buying and selling real estate.

That said, many of today’s buyers who work from home are looking for another perk—a home office. This is why virtually staging a bedroom as a home office is a quick and easy way to kill two birds with one stone. You can virtually stage a home office in minutes using Apply Design for just $7 per image.

We’ve just talked a lot about the magic of cleaning up, decluttering and editing your home, but there comes a point when a house can look too sterile and barren. Potential buyers will find it difficult to visualize where to put their own furniture and personal things if the house is empty. Effective staging not only captures the attention of prospective buyers but allows them to visualize themselves living in the space — evoking emotions that make your property unforgettable. If you are staging the home yourself, consider the costs of paint, repair and cleaning supplies, storage options as you declutter, new furniture, accessories and decor.